Monthly Archives: November 2015

It’s that regular time of month when I take a snapshot of the state of the anti Hs2 campaign and (for them) the news just gets worse. Let’s kick off with the usual analysis of their performance across social media – which they’ve become increasingly reliant upon as their activist base declines.

There’s now 9 months of data to analyse and what it shows is that, despite evidence that they’ve been stung into trying to improve the numbers – they’re still getting nowhere fast.

First, remember the usual caveat, not all followers are supporters, many are simply there to keep an eye on what they’re up to. Also, many of their Twitter followers are fake accounts or sock puppets so Twitter is a very poor gauge of real support. Plus, a group of people all ranting to each other don’t really have an impact outside of their own small circle. Facebook is even more insular. It’s good for getting your message out to people who like your pages, but that means you’re only really preaching to the converted. It’s also a double-edged sword as the Stophs2 Facebook page shows. On it you can see a small group of hopelessly confused people who really can’t understand why no-one is actually listening to them, although anyone looking in can easily see why. Here’s a few recent examples;

Crunching the numbers shows their Facebook campaign is moribund with only a 5.33% increase for Stophs2 and a mere 0.74% for Hs2aa. What’s even worse is the increases are from a tiny base! As for 51M – they’ve gone backwards, but as their FB page was last updated in June 2011 & they’ve effectively ceased to exist it’s moot.

Over on Twitter things aren’t much better. The two surviving groups (stophs2 & Hs2aa) are still under 5,000 followers apiece so a 10% increase in 9 months means little. Of course, many of these followers will be the same people, which limits their spread even more. The great irony in the figures is the only person with a decent increase is the former Communications Director of another defunct group (AGAHST) who’s achieved her popularity by tweeting about anything other than Hs2! Their Twitter campaign is increasingly farcical. It’s mostly in the hands of isolated individual who try to to keep it going. The ludicrous stuff they tweet is mostly outright bonkers or offensive, it certainly won’t convert the people they need to stop Hs2 – which makes it all the more counterproductive. This is starting to tell as the numbers of retweets their nonsense gets is steadily declining.

Another sign of the anti Hs2 campaign’s decline is that the Hs2aa website is STILL blocked by virus protection software some three and a half weeks after I first blogged about it.

Meanwhile, in the real world,things are even worse. Their campaign’s had a truly awful month…

The stophs2 campaign held a secret gathering of countrywide groups that was nothing short of an embarrassment. You can read about it here. All it achieved was to show how much the strength of their campaign has declined in the past couple of years. Their woes were compounded when the Chancellor, George Osborne presented his budget review. Not only did this expose their claims that hs2 would divert money from improvements to the existing rail network, it also skewered their ridiculous claims for how much Hs2 will cost as the budget was updated to 2015 prices. You can read about that here.

Budget day also exposed a growing schism between the two remaining anti Hs2 groups. Whilst Stophs2 have been trying to spin the costs of Hs2 as “spiralling” Hs2aa members were distinctly off-message at the Hybrid Bill petitions! Hs2aa’s Hilary Wharf was part of a group that was arguing the Chilterns could have a fully bored tunnel as tunnelling costs often turned out to be lower than official estimates! You can see their evidence to the Committee here.

So, where does this leave their campaign? Up shit creek really…

They’ve utterly failed to make any political breakthrough. Their activist base is steadily declining and their stability of the two remaining groups in looking increasingly rocky. Meanwhile, the Government and Hs2 Ltd are pressing ahead with the project whilst the Hybrid Bill Committee are steaming ahead with the petitioning process – all of which eats further into the Stophs2 activist base.

Somehow I don’t think there’s going to be much cheer at the Stophs2 Christmas party, which is going to be their last….

I’m currently en-route to Derby and ‘enjoying’ kicking my heels in a very gloomy Manchester in between trains. Even my camera is squinting in this light..

That said, I’m looking to an interesting and entertaining evening at the Rail Forum East Midlands dinner which is a precursor to tomorrows annual conference which is held at Derby cricket ground.

Needless to say, there will be lots to talk about after yesterdays spending review and release of the Hendy report into Network Rails investment plans. The doom and gloom that some were predicting for the rail industry has failed to materialise. Instead, the future is looking rather rosy…

No doubt I’ll have time to do a bit of tweeting in between taking the pictures tomorrow, so feel free to follow proceedings at @PaulBigland1

Today’s not been a good day for the anti hs2 campaign despite their high expectations. For some reason they’d convinced themselves that there was trouble on the horizon for Hs2 and that the Autumn spending review might even see Hs2 cancelled as the Government ran out of money for investment.

For days they’d been circulating nonsense comparisons such as ‘defense spending or Hs2’ or even ‘Police Officers or Hs2’. In the end the Chancellor made complete fools of them! Not only did he find new money for the armed forces and didn’t cut the police budget – he also confirmed extra money for transport investment including Trans-Pennine electrification and confirmed the Hs2 budget at £55.7bn in 2015 prices.

The poor anti Hs2 mob didn’t know how to respond. StopHs2’s Penny Gaines and Joe Rukin had been sitting by their keyboards, waiting to spin what they could, but found the cupboard was bare. They managed a few desultory tweets but Osborne had clearly wrong-footed them.

Once the news broke that the Hs2 budget had been adjusted they tried the usual daft spin to pretend that the budget for Hs2 is the same as the cost of Hs2. They were helped by one or two confused Journo’s who managed the same feat, so I must give credit to the BBC’s Paul Scoins (@paulscoins) who corrected a tweet when I pointed this out to him.

What wrong -footed the antis even more was the revelation that the updated budget also included the budget estimate for the Hs2 trains, meaning the increase was far smaller than they’d be trying to spin! What they’d failed to understand was the 2015 cost is simply the 2011 cost adjusted for inflation. Of course, if you’re going to adjust the Hs2 budget for inflation you also have to adjust the benefits of Hs2 by the same amount. Watch some of the antis really struggle with that little fact…

Meanwhile, in one of those wonderful ironies, whilst StopHs2 and a few other antis were trying to pretend that this is a real cost increase in Hs2, Hilary Wharf, a member of the other remaining anti Hs2 Group – Hs2aa – was with a group from Potter Row who were presenting their petition to the Hybrid Bill Committee. Wharf and Co are arguing for a fully bored tunnel under the Chilterns. Part of their argument was that the actual costs of tunnels can come in lower than initial budgets- a position in diametric opposition to their fellow travellers at StopHs2!

Worse was to come as details of Sir Peter Hendy’s report into Network Rail was released. This exposed the anti Hs2 mobs scaremongering on Hs2 sucking money from rail investment was complete nonsense. You can read the details on RAIL magazines website.

Meanwhile, Stop Hs2 windbag Joe Rukin jumped in with both feet, ignoring the fact his local county council (Warks) pays its Chief Executive over £172k…

Even more unfortunately, the National Trusts Hs2 Officer Steve Field climbed on the bandwagon. He seemed unaware the NT (a charity) has been criticised for paying several of its senior staff large salaries whilst leaving the rank & file employers on low pay. Ironically, the same paper Field quotes (The Telegraph) ran an article in 2013 that heavily criticised the NTs top heavy salaries, such as the Trusts former Director General who was on £179k..

It’s been lovely to have a couple of days at home but these things never last long. Tomorrow I have to be up at silly o’ clock to head over to a school near Wigan to do a job for Network Rail that involves pupils and a “sleb”. After which I meander across to Derby to get ready for the Rail Exec gala at the Roundhouse where I’m booked to go up on stage and award a prize for the Rail Engineer’s photography competition. This will be a novel experience as I’ll be on the other end of a camera for a change!

I’m sure it’ll be a great event and I’m looking forward to catching up with friends and colleagues. The fly in the ointment is that I have to be in London by 09:30 the next morning to do a job for RAIL magazine. Still, I’ll get back home Friday night, which is a bonus.

The ‘good’ news is that the job that would have seen me working trackside out in rural Lincolnshire over the weekend has been cancelled. This means I have the luxury of a weekend at home – albeit one filled with editing, filing etc…

It’s been quite amusing to see the way the anti Hs2 campaign’s suffered a bout of collective amnesia now that the Telegraph has latched onto the idea of double-deck trains.

Amnesia because this has been done to death before. It didn’t stop Hs2 then and it won’t stop Hs2 now.

The Telegraph (behind the curve as usual) has suddenly discovered a report that was discussed in the rail press way back in April. Here’s the Tel’s report from November 16th – and here’s the original report from Rail Technology Magazine way back on April 16th (seven months earlier!)

Needless to say, the anti Hs2 mob have got all excited about this and grasped onto it like a drowning man holds onto a lifebelt. In doing so they’ve studiously ignored all the pesky technical, engineering & economic questions that real-world folks have tried to address for years – not to mention the circles that would need to be squared.

Now, ignoring the fact the Tel’s report is based on a design house study that hasn’t come up with anything yet (far less than a workable train design), let’s have a look at some of the questions the anti Hs2 mob ignore but sensible people are bound to ask.

How can double-deck trains fit in the UK?

The simple answer is – they can’t as things stand. The UK loading gauge on most routes simply precludes their use. But this is not just the height of trains we’re talking about – it’s the length of the vehicles too. Let’s delve into a bit of history. When our Victorian network was built the railways ran short (30ft long) 4-wheel coaches. In fact, these were still being built right up to the end of the Victorian era. What this meant was the railways could get away with some tightly curved platforms and tracks as the coaches could fit around them.

The picture above shows Clapham Junction now with a train of 19.83m long class 455 vehicles in platforms with a pretty fierce reverse curve. Fancy trying to fit longer vehicles in here without the horrendous rebuilding costs & disruption to the UK’s busiest station that would entail?

Gradually (to improve comfort & with the invention of the bogie) coaches got longer & some doubled in size to reach 60-62 foot long. The issue with this is (and always was) the overhang of the coaches on curves which governs how tight platforms & other infrastructure can be. For many years British Rail standardised on coaches that were 57 ft 0 in (17.37 m) or 63 ft 6 in (19.35 m). Eventually the Intercity fleet standardised on 23m long vehicles whilst commuter and local services used 20m long vehicles as the maximum that could fit many tight platforms.

Why does this matter to double deck trains? Simple – because of the amount of room taken up by stairwells. Here’s a few examples.

There’s no benefit on capacity of a double-deck 20m vehicle as the stairwells at either end take up so much room it cancels out the seats provided on the upper deck. A 23m vehicle will give you around 12-13% extra capacity. It’s only when you get into longer vehicle lengths that DD coaches make sense. But here’s the rub – those longer coaches won’t fit on much of the network. Not only that, but they would even be restricted on some lines they could because of the curvature on certain station platforms or tight curves where they’d foul adjacent lines. For example. SouthWest trains use 23m long Class 444s – but these are banned from platforms 1-4 at Waterloo, thus reducing the flexibility of the railway.

Oh, and don’t even ask how much headroom you might have on the top deck. Even in Europe this can be quite tight. With the UK’s restricted loading gauge you’d be lucky to be able to stand upright if you were above 5’6″- hardly good when the average height is 5’9″ & will only increase over the next few decades!

So, what seems a simple idea proves to be increasingly complex when you look at the details – something the anti hs2 mob never do anyway. Put simply, the capacity to be gained from double-deck trains doesn’t make up for either the cost of adapting the network to make them fit or the reduction in operational flexibility (and thus track capacity). What you gain on the swings you lose on the roundabouts.

You could add 12-13% capacity to coaches at great expense, but reduce the overall capacity of the railway and find your gain is even less. But how much time does that 13% buy you? At the current rate of growth it’s less than a couple of years on some routes. At best it might be a decade on others. But at what cost? In 2005 Stagecoach carried out a study into running DD trains & found just the short bit between Waterloo and Clapham Junction would have cost almost £1 billion to convert for full-scale double deck trains (The Times, June 2005)

Then what?

This is a serious ‘alternative’ to Hs2? Of course not. Hs2 is designed to take intercity trains off the classic network. DD trains don’t add any capacity to our lines, they simply allow a few more folks to get on existing services. besides, would you want to travel long-distance in one of these cramped vehicles?

As the anti Hs2 campaign continues to implode and gets more desperate by the week it’s become harder to single out a single campaigner for the weekly award. Nowadays, crazy sums up their whole campaign.

That changed today when Peter Jones, the obnoxious and libelous Camden campaigner came out with something so utterly crass and blinkered that it takes your breath away.

Like many people, I’ve spent the past 12 hours watching with horror as the tragic events unfolded in Paris. This morning it became clear just how awful the scale of the terrorist attack had been. Along with people worldwide I was moved to show solidarity with Paris and the people caught up by displaying a symbol drawn up by a young man who then shared it on social media. That symbol has since gone viral. You can read about it here – although I’m sure many of you will have already seen it.

Enter Peter Jones, who posted this on Twitter this morning (hence my reply);

Since then this has been retweeted by several other anti Hs2 campaigners. As their campaign’s collapsed cheap insults have become Jones’ and the anti hs2 mobs stock in trade. Typically, each time you think they couldn’t sink any lower they manage to dig another basement level. One can only hope that their increasingly extreme and unpleasant campaign isn’t digging basement levels but its own grave…

UPDATE:

To cement his title to the crown, Jones has added ambulance-chasing to his list of odious accomplishments. To compound French woes there has been a rail accident today. A high-speed test train has derailed on a yet to be opened TGV line, killing five of the technicians aboard. Jones triumphantly & sickly uses this incident in a crude attempt to scaremonger & smear high speed rail in general & Hs2 in particular, then pretends a 2014 incident in which a TER service hit a TGV was a second accident today!

Note there’s not a single drop of sympathy anywhere for the dead and injured, or their families, just triumphalism. Jones and his fellow travellers in the anti Hs2 campaign are beneath contempt.

16 November UPDATE

Here’s proof (where any more needed) from this evening that Jones is a brass-necked hypocrite of the first water who has the cheek to accuse me of exploiting tragedy!

Just when it seemed the anti Hs2 campaign had hit a new low with their pear tree stunt they managed to pull yet another rabbit out of the hat – and this one is a stunner!

Here’s some background. A few years ago StopHs2 used to organise a national gathering of anti Hs2 groups at the Staffordshire showground. Here’s one of their press releases puffing the 2013 event. In those heady days they’d punt the event to all and sundry, sell tickets at £10 a pop and advertise “a huge range of speakers and stands”. The media would be invited and even a few MPs would attend. Here’s the 2013 programme.

How things change! When the Hs2 Hybrid Bill passed 2nd reading with a stonking majority of 411 the light began to dawn. People were already dropping away and ‘action’ groups folding but the process accelerated. This led to the antis cancelling the 2014 gathering, scrapping any public demonstrations & increasingly taking refuge in social media.

And in 2015? There was complete radio silence about any planned event – until today – when this was slipped out in the Bucks Herald. Spot the difference. No media, no MPs, no tickets and no Staffs showground. It was all secret. There was no advertising of the event on any of their websites or anywhere else. Instead they had to be “hosted” by the Amersham group. How many turned up? No-one knows – because they refuse to say. There’s been no trumpeting of the “success” of the event on any of their websites – or on those of any of their dwindling number of supporters.

If any proof was needed that the anti Hs2 campaign’s dying – this is it – and they’ve supplied it themselves…

I’ve decamped to Brighton for a few days as my ‘other half’ has been seconded to the local Community Rail Partnership. As all I need is camera, laptop and internet connection I trotted along to keep her company.

Sadly, the weather isn’t up to much, being worthy of a Spike Jones “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh” type postcard rather than a glowing endorsement of the British seaside. Still, it’s great to be back down here again as it gives me the opportunity to do some exploring whilst researching some more station buffets and bars for a forthcoming magazine article. Of course, there’s chance for a few more rail and travel pictures too, which you can find on my Zenfolio website, in this gallery.

There are times when I look at the anti Hs2 campaign and the only thing I can say is ‘Bless’! Tonight is one of those times. It seems they’re cock a hoop at getting an old pear tree on the route of Hs2 elected “tree of the year” and mentioned on BBC’s Countryfile.

Wow!

Contrast this with the fact the Hs2 Hybrid Bill sailed through 2nd reading in Parliament with a cross-party majority of 411 – by far the biggest majority of any Parliamentary Bill during the Coalition Government.

A vote for a pear tree will Stop Hs2?

Rather than celebrating the anti Hs2 campaign should be looking in a mirror and saying to themselves “we’re reduced to this”? There’s naivety and desperation in equal measures here. Can you honestly imagine Parliament being reconvened for an emergency debate on the news, or the Dept of Transport burning the midnight oil to come up with a response?